Abstract

Development of white phosphors with highly emissive, stable, and less toxic characteristics has been important for display and lighting technology. In this letter, it is shown that sol-gel-derived glasses of aluminosilicate composition, followed by a heat treatment in air at low temperatures around 500 °C, exhibit two intense, visible photoluminescence bands: One is due to point defects in these glasses and the other comes from radical carbonyl-terminations on the surface of pores. The photoluminescence provides a white light with high luminescencequantum efficiency (∼66.5%) under long-wavelength ultraviolet excitation.